Romans 3:23 (ESV): for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV): The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

If you’re going to have a band fronted by one of the greatest frontman vocalists the rock genre has ever produced, you should probably have a pretty cool and edgy name to sell the rock and roll persona to go with it. Paul Rodgers managed just that when the title to his song “Bad Company” gave birth to the name of one of the era’s most recognizable band names spawning dozens of hits. The song Bad Company immediately invokes a sense of rebellion and freedom for falling outside societal norms. That’s rock and roll at its core! Unfortunately, it also is a pretty good description of all of us if we are standing in comparison to God and His heavenly kingdom. Yep, every one of us is tainted with sin. We like to categorize sin to the point where most of us brush it off, but standing in comparison to God we are very much the Bad Company Paul Rodgers sings about!

One of the first and hardest obstacles to come to terms with on a walk of the Christian faith starts with acknowledging we need saving. All of us. Saving from what, sin? What is “sin” anyway? The definition of sin depending on the source is usually captured in one form or another as being a transgression against a “religious” principle or violation of some divine act. Ahhh, religious rules and standards! Those standards are often met with scorn as being antiquated and no longer relevant in modern society. The retort is often, “but I am a GOOD person!” “I help people.” “I care for others.” “I donate to charity.” “What kind of God would punish someone who does good?” Those are all very good questions and deserve answers. But, before we can begin to answer that last question, we should really come to grips with what sin means in the eyes of God. 

“Sin” as translated from biblical text means something along the lines of missing the mark. What mark? Well, perfection. Yes, it’s true, God demands perfection. Perfection is another definition worth exploring. Perfect is generally defined as being without defect, completely free of any faults or imperfections. Free of ALL faults. NO imperfections…that’s an incredibly difficult standard for even the most upstanding among us. What does imperfect even look like? The easy answers are on the nightly news. Rape, murder, child abandonment or abuse, dog fighting, pollution, embezzlement…you get the idea. But you are GOOD. Those horrible things don’t apply to you. You have a good heart and try to leave the world a better place than you found it! But are you perfect? 

Sometimes imperfection looks like calling someone a jerk who cuts you off in traffic. Maybe it feels like your skin getting warm with frustration or anger when that “inconsiderate” parent won’t correct their child who is screaming in the grocery line. Perhaps it’s the smile on your face when the teenager who blew by you on the freeway is parked in front of a car with flashing lights a couple miles up the road. Perhaps it’s that second glance at the lingerie model covering the billboard on your way to work. That feeling of contentment when your least favorite candidate has a publicly embarrassing moment, or the kid at little league with the annoyingly vocal and bragging parent is tagged out at Homeplate. Maybe all of this seems pretty minor to you in the grand scheme of horrible things people do themselves and others in this broken world. And maybe you’re right. But is it free of fault? Without imperfection? God says no, it’s not perfect. It has a name and it’s called sin. 

In fact, Jesus went so far as to lay it out nice and plain for us with a couple examples, so we didn’t miss the point. He told us even if we looked on another with lustful eyes, we were just as guilty as the physical act of adultery. Calling someone a “fool” even puts us in the same league as a murderer. Why? Because Jesus wanted us to understand the heart was where we gave birth to sin, to the imperfection. And none of us has a perfect heart, not one. While the level of acceptability of our imperfect heart may have degrees of acceptance and severity to the broken world, God sees the heart and judges them all with the same measuring stick, perfection. Anything lacking perfection, well, misses the mark. It is sin. And sin must be atoned for. 

So, to answer that final question, why would a loving God knowing good and well we all miss the mark hold us to a standard we cannot obtain? He didn’t. He let us try for a while, but like any good parent stood patiently by until we realized not only would we fail with our attempts at perfection, but we would eventually figure out a way to make atoning for our imperfections more about us than the one we were seeking forgiveness from. So, he gave us Jesus. Jesus took on the punishment we all deserve because God knew His standard was too high for us to attain on our own. He set the standard for us, demanded a price we could never pay, and then offered to reconcile the debt for us. What’s the cost? For you and me it starts with that painful admission we struggle with at the beginning of our journey, admitting we are all sinners. Every. Single. One. The next part is actually pretty easy, simply accept the gift we’ve been given in having the price for our sinful nature paid for in full. Accept Jesus as our savior from the sin that causes us to miss the mark. Don’t worry about who you are or what you’ve done in the past. We are all sinners and we all miss the standard of perfection entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven demands, but Jesus as it turns out has a track record of loving even the worst of us if we only seek Him and His redeeming grace. Turns out He loves bad company and that’s all of us.